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STATE OF NEW YORK 

jToreet, jflsb anfc (Same Commission 

JAMES S. WHIPPLE WILLIAM F. FOX 

Commissioner Superintendent of Forests 



MAKING A W00DL0T FROIH SEED 



BY 



A. KNECHTEL, Forester 



ALBANY 

J. B. LYON COMPANY, STATE PRINTERS 

1907 



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APF 22 ?908 



Making A Woodlot From Seed. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

In the early history of New York, it was essential that the farming 
land should be cleared of trees. Even yet in some few parts of the State 
such clearing may be necessary. But so thoroughly have trees been 
removed that there are now very many farms with scarcely a stick of 
living timber. The land has not been thus denuded because it is all 
arable, or even good grazing land. Nearly every farm has some ground 
that is fit for little else than the raising of trees, as they will grow where 
the soil is too poor for farm crops, and on places too steep or too stony 
for grazing. 

Nearly every farmer realizes the importance of a woodlot, since, on 
the farm, wood is put to so many uses. It is needed for firewood, build- 
ing, fencing, tool handles, and very many incidental purposes. But the 
trouble is, the farmer who has a woodlot does not know how to keep it 
in good condition if it is a good one, nor how to improve it if it is a poor 
one ; and the farmer who has no woodlot does not know the means by 
which one may be established. It is the purpose of this paper to give 
directions for making a woodlot. 

HOW TO GET TREES. 

There are three ways by which trees may be obtained. Small trees 
may be gathered from the woods and set out on the farm; they may be 
purchased from nurserymen ; or they may be raised from seed. To 
collect from the woods is inconvenient, slow, and laborious, and the 
trees when moved do not live well. To purchase from nurserymen is 
too expensive for the average farmer. But nearly every farmer has now 
and then a spare hour which, if devoted to raising trees from seed, would 
yield large profit and give much pleasure. 

In New York State the farmer will do well to confine his planting at 
present to chestnut, or white pine, or both species. The chestnut will 
grow on almost any farm south of latitude 43.25 degrees. White pine will 
grow well anywhere in the State except near the sea coast. 



HOW TO PLANT CHESTNUT* 

THE SEED. 

To raise chestnut trees, gather the nuts as soon as they fall from the 
trees. Spread them out in a thin layer on the floor, or, better, on a lath 
screen, and expose them for seven or eight days to the full action of the 
sun's rays. Then pack them in a barrel or box, in moist sand, three bushels 
of sand to one bushel of chestnuts. Keep them through the winter in a 
cool, dry place protected from vermin. In the spring as soon as the 
ground is thawed out plant them where the trees are to remain perman- 
ently. Take a grubhoe and hack up the soil in spots about five feet apart 
each way. Sow two 1 uts in each spot, putting them one and one-half 
inches below the surface of the soil. Place the nuts with their smaller 
ends upward. 

THE NURSERY. 

Some of the seed will probably be taken by mice and squirrels, and 
some left in the ground will fail to grow. Get ready a small nursery so 
that you will have young trees in the following spring to plant fail spots. 
Work up a small piece of ground as you would for a vegetable garden. 
In this nursery plant the nuts in drills. Put the drills a foot apart and 
place the seed four inches apart in the drill. Put the seed in the nursery 
only one inch deep. For two or three years you may need to replace 
dead trees in the field with live ones from the nursery. The trees which 
you leave in the nursery more than one year should be transplanted in 
the spring of the second year into drills two feet apart, putting the trees 
one foot apart in the drill. In transplanting do not let the roots become 
dry. Cut the strong taproots. Keep the weeds out of the nursery. 

If you wish to plant oak, walnut, butternut, or hickory, follow the diiec- 
tions given for the chestnut. Other broadleaf trees should be started in 
a nursery. Remember this : no tree seed should be planted deeper than 
three times the short diameter of the seed. 

HOW TO RAISE WHITE PINE. 

THE SEED. 
To raise white pine, go to the woods about the first of September and 
collect a bagful of pine cones. You will have to knot k or cut the cones 
from the trees. Take the cones to a dry room protected from vermin, and 
spread them on the floor. In each cone are many seeds, two above 
nearly every scale if the cone is a good one. In a few days the scales 
will loosen and open. Shake out the seed or pound it out with a flail. 



Then rub it through a sieve to take off the wings, and put it through 
a fanning mill to clean it. Store it in a cool, dry place free from 
vermin, till spring. 

THE NURSERY. 
Start your pine trees in a small nursery. As soon as the ground is 
thoroughly thawed out in the spring, make a bed of sandy loam, four feet 
wide and twelve feet long. Put on two inches of black muck or other 
rich soil and two pailfuls of fresh wood ashes, and work this thoroughly 
into the soil. Make a box around the bed, using boards one inch thick 
and eight inches wide, set on edge. Let the box project above the bed 
about five inches, and in this projecting pait bore a lot of holes with an 
inch bit, to let the air pass freely over the bed. 

Rake the top of the bed until the soil is very fine ; better put it through 
a sieve. If the weather is dry, water the bed thoroughly with a watering 
can. Sow the seed so that the grains will lie about one-fourth inch apart. 
Then compact the surface of the soil with the back of a spade and sift on 
some sand, just enough to put the seed well out of sight. 

Now stretch some wire cloth with one-half inch mesh over a frame that 
will just fit the box. Place this over the bed to keep the birds from taking 
the seed. Make also a lath screen that will fit the box, placing the pieces 
of lath the width of a lath apart and put this on the bed to give it shade. 
Lay extra lath into the spaces in the screen so that the bed will be 
thoroughly darkened. In about three weeks the seed will germinate, 
and as soon as the little trees begin to come through the soil remove the 
extra lath pieces and do not replace them. On cloudy days lift off the 
lath screen, but on every bright day during the first summer it should be 
kept on the bed. Keep the weeds out. 

A short time before snow falls, turn the wire screen upside down. Fill 
it with leaves to keep, the plants from heaving out through the winter. 
Put the lath screen over the leaves to hold them from being blown away 
by the wind. Take off the leaves and the screens in the spring as soon 
as the danger from heaving is over. During the second summer just 
keep out the weeds. Start another seed bed. 

After two years growth in the seed bed transplant the trees into other 
nursery beds prepared similarly to the seed bed. Do this in the spiiiig 
as soon as the ground is thoroughly thawed out. Thrust a spade under 
the plants and lift them from the bed. Shake out the trees, being careful 
not to tear off any roots. Place them immediately in a pail containing a 
puddle of thin mud. In transplanting trees, their roots must not be 



allowed to get dry. Do not leave any trees in the bed with their roots 
exposed to the sun or wind. 

Now, get a board four feet long and four inches wide. Cut nicks 
along one edge at every four inches. Stretch a string along one side of 
the transplant bed, and lay the board across one end of the bed, with the 
nicks toward the center, and one end of it touching the string. Get 
upon the board and tramp on it from one end to the other to firm the 
soil beneath it. Now take a trowel and dig away the soil along the edge 
that has the nicks, making a trench deep enough to set the plants a trifle 
lower than they stood in the seed bed. Then place a good plant at 
every nick and fill in the trench. Move the board over the transplanted 
row, bring it up close to the trees, but be careful not to bark the plants. 
Set another row and go on with the operation till all the trees are trans- 
planted. Put more muck and ashes on your vacant seed bed and sow it 
again. Keep out the weeds. 

PLANTING. 

When the trees are three years old, take them up with a spade, puddle 
the roots, pack them into a basket lined with wet moss or burlap and take 
them to the field where the woodlot is to be started. The planting field 
may be far from the nursery, and it may be necessary to take to the field, 
at once, more plants than can be set in a few hours. In such case, when 
the trees arrive at the field, take the in from the baskets, dip the roots in 
water and " heel them in " ; that is, dig a trench, set the trees along it in 
a thin row, tops up, fill in the trench, covering the roots and about half 
the stems, and tramp down the soil. 

Plant from a pail containing soft mud. Set the trees five feet apart each 
way. Make the holes with a grubhoe. Dig deep enough to allow the 
trees to stand a trifle lower than in the transplant bed, and wide enough 
to allow plenty of room for the roots. In setting the plants, put the 
loose loam next to the roots. If you have a sod, place it around the tree 
with the grassy side down for a mulch. Now tramp the soil thoroughly 
around the tree. For two or three years replace dead trees with live 
ones from the nursery. 

If )Ou wish to raise other species of pine trees, or spruce or balsam 
trees, follow the directions given for the white pine. Spruce and balsam, 
however, should be left two years in the transplanted bed. Pine should 
also be four years old when planted in grassy places. 

If it is inconvenient for you to collect seeds you can purchase them. 
Chestnut seed will cost you about 25 cents a pound, white pine seed 
about $2.50 a pound. 



7 

Good fresh tree seeds can be bought from the following dealers: 
J. M. Thorburn & Co , 35 Barclay St., New York City. 
Thos. Meehan & Sons, Germantown, Phila., Pa. 
Theodore F. Borst, South Framingham, Mass. 

When you have your woodlot established write to the Forest, Fish 
and Game Commission for advice concerning its after treatment. 



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